In this article I present two theories of historical inquiry, which I characterize as conservative and pragmatic. I argue that these two views of history, John Dewey’s and Hans Georg Gadamer’s, provide an excluded middle between the extremes of positivism and relativism. They are pragmatic insofar as they accept the anti-foundationalist critique of positivism; they are conservative insofar as they refuse to reduce historical inquiry to mere discourse or narrative. Both focus on the situatedness of historical inquiry, paying special attention (...) to the culturally emergent conceptual schemes and prejudices of the historian, but they constrain historical inquiry by providing an improved understanding of the relationship between the problems which give rise to our inquiries and the tools which help resolve them. Dewey, in the key of naturalism, and Gadamer, in the key of phenomenology, provide conservative and pragmatic philosophies of historical inquiry, which refuse to pose as science, but do not fall into narrative fiction. Additionally, their approaches to historical inquiry share a concern for the practical application of the study of history. In this concern for application, both Dewey and Gadamer provide a theory of historical inquiry consonant with a conservative and pragmatic judicial theory, which rejects both the formalism of legal positivism and the model of unconstrained judicial radicalism. (shrink)

Conservatism and Pragmatism illustrates the intersections between classical British Conservative thought and classical American Pragmatist philosophy with regard to methodology in politics, ethics, and law.

In a 2001 article entitled “The Classical Conservative Challenge to Dewey,” Shawn O’Dwyer puts John Dewey’s understanding of method to the test of criticisms made by conservative theorist Michael Oakeshott. Oakeshott criticizes the view that technical knowledge is superior to the reliance on custom, tradition, and habit in practical knowledge, that moral intelligence can be taught, and that moral intelligence consists of the application of techniques to resolve problems. O’Dwyer concludes that Dewey’s reflections on moral deliberation pass Oakeshott’s challenge to (...) rationalism “with its central themes intact, if not unscathed.”1 In light of O’Dwyer’s article, we see that the classical conservatives and the .. (shrink)

Social Darwinism covers a set of particulars bearing a family resemblance including, but not limited to the extension of evolutionary biology to social phenomena, a biological explanation for the success of certain more biologically "fit" groups over others, an acceptance of the use of force by the "fit" to succeed over the "unfit" in the life struggle, and a preference for competition in the marketplace and a laissez-faire ideology. The serpent of Social Darwinism leaves a trail of the eugenics movement (...) in its wake. Evidence can be found that Oliver Wendell Holmes's judicial and non-judicial philosophy fits each of these instantiations.This paper first explains the origins of Social... (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Michael Oakeshott’s metaphysics of experience shares significant features with the pragmatism of C.S. Peirce and John Dewey and that these similarities highlight methodological norms guiding inquiry into philosophy’s value fields. Oakeshott, Peirce, and Dewey agree on (1) the primacy of experience in philosophical inquiry, (2) the dismissal of the capacity of intuition as a valid mode of experience contributing to a reliable epistemology, (3) a refusal of metaphysical dualism and a resulting continuity principle, and (...) (4) consonant notions of the conditions and pattern of inquiry. This comparative analysis opens up new possibilities for prudently advancing the value fields in philosophy. Inquiry into legal, moral, and political philosophies, given the insights of Oakeshott, Peirce, and Dewey, can proceed prudently upon these shared premises and the skepticism of rationalism in politics, ethics, and law which ensues from them. (shrink)

In this article, I address the question of whether or not the use of instant replay in sports improves the ability of officials to make correct calls. I pay special attention to the use of instant reply in American gridiron football. I first explain the method of static phenomenology, by recourse to Edmund Husserl's work and apply a static phenomenological method to the official's quest for evidence in the analysis of a still frame of video. Second, I expose Husserl's genetic (...) method of phenomenology and apply it to the official's search for evidence and accuracy when assessing a play in a frame-by-frame or super-slow-motion analysis. I then look critically at the intersection of these two methods in instant replay analysis. My conclusion is that in cases calling only for a static analysis, I think that instant replay is beneficial. In other cases, the application of a static, frame-by-frame analysis, abstracted from lived experience, to a context of movement, can disrupt the normality of perception such that it yields problematic evidence. The problems that ensue from employing a static analysis to a situation calling for a genetic analysis cause me to recommend a limited use of instant replay in the types of cases which involve a genetic analysis. Epistemologically, I think that lived-time analysis is the optimal mode of perceiving and judging certain events. Humanistically, my concern is that the use of instant replay can disrupt the life-world of sport. (shrink)

In this review essay, I offer a summary of Brian E. Butler’s The Democratic Constitution: Experimentalism and Interpretation. Butler’s democratic experimentalism offers the thesis that democracy needs to be protected democratically rather than by relying on the judicial supremacy over constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court. Butler illustrates what democratic experimentalism looks like through a close reading of key cases showing the virtues of an on-going, open-ended, empirical, fallibilist, and collaborative approach to constitutional interpretation against rival formalist and exclusionary theories. (...) Butler relies on Richard Posner’s iconoclastic empirical approach to adjudication in advancing his thesis. However, Posner is skeptical of the Deweyan democracy Butler deploys to illustrate the democratic constitution. Further, Posner dismisses the philosophical pragmatism of Peirce and Dewey that Butler uses to ground his theory. Because of Butler’s reliance on Posner’s judicial practice and his side-stepping of Posner’s views on democracy and philosophical pragmatism, I ask how Butler’s proposal stands in relation to the ways it departs from Posner’s theory, if not his practice. (shrink)

The Pragmatism and Prejudice of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. examines the varied categories scholars have used to describe the philosophy of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. These include, “Jobbist,” Nihilist, Realist, Social Darwinist, Utilitarian, Positivist, Natural Law Theorist, and Pragmatist.

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Volume 6, Issue 1, Page 90-94, February 2012.

In this paper I measure the progressive potentiality of art against Russell Kirk’s notion of “normative art”. Kirk argues that good literature cultivates virtue according to a transcendent norm, a law of nature. I interrogate the extent to which this art can be conservative according to Kirk’s own meaning of conservatism and read his own conservatism against itself in an effort to show which of its tenets detrimentally supersede and contradict its others. The criticism of Kirk’s discussion of normative art (...) makes use of Charles Sanders Peirce’s more sophisticated epistemology, metaphysics, and normative science of aesthetics. Ultimately, Kirk’s conservatism and his position on normative art rely on metaphysical dualism and the gratuitous capacity of intuition. This ends in an unjustified discounting of his principles of variety, imperfectability, prescription, and continuity and their subordination to his principle of transcendence. (shrink)